League of Empire Loyalists

The League of Empire Loyalists (LEL) was a British reactionary political party that was active from 1954 to 1967. The party was founded by former Conservative Party members led by Arthur K. Chesterton, himself a former British Union of Fascists member who sought to re-found the BUF. The LEL, a far-right organization, was founded in reaction to the rise of more liberal forms of Toryism, as well as the growth of the Soviet Union and the United States. The party succeeded in attracting some leaders of the Conservative establishment, including Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, to its ranks in its early years, and it would come to be comprised of right-wing conservatives, particularly veterans, and pre-World War II fascists. In 1958, the group reached its height with 3,000 members, but it fell into financial trouble during the early 1960s. In 1967, the party merged into the British National Front.